The following description relates to communicating with data storage systems.
External databases containing data can be accessed and controlled in a number of ways. One exemplary technique for interacting with remote data sources is the use of web services. Web services provide a common protocol that web applications can use to connect to each other over a network (e.g., a local area network, or the Internet). One advantage of web services is that they are based on industry standards. The services can be described in extensible markup language (XML) and are communicated over existing hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) infrastructure. The combination of XML and HTTP forms, for example, allows for the data transfer protocol: Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP).